Cloudy

I have seen tattooists sometimes would add extra parts to Chinese character tattoo, in order to give it a little more “flair”, and have failed miserably.

For example, in this photo sent in by NDC of his friend’s new tattoo:



The poor chump was told this character meant "vengeance". If the intended character was 魁 (head, chief), then the cloud has completely covered the two important dots. Thus, the character is meaningless.

There is an old Chinese idiom called 畫蛇添足. Literally, it means “draw a snake and add feet to it”, or “to do something unnecessary”.

"Mandarin Lettering"

Every time Shannon Larratt updates his BMEzine.com gallery with user submitted tattoos, I would get some great laughs and then followed by shaking my head.

Today Cory Ward of Sinful Skin Tattoo in McMinnville,TN, has submitted this work of his with title, "Mandarin Lettering".

By the way, there is no such thing as "Mandarin Lettering". Two main groups of spoken Chinese, not written Chinese, are Mandarin and Cantonese. While Mainland China uses a Simplified system, Traditional Chinese is more accepted worldwide (more).




Since I could not identify the last character after 道 and 安, I decide to turn the photo upside down, and guess what:




It is a crappy 極.

Courtesy Phrase Tattoo

As an old-fashioned type of man, I often do little things like opening doors for ladies as a sign of courtesy. Of course, sometimes the women would show their appreciation with a simple “thank you”.

What if the person who did the good deed is not an English speaker?



http://is2.okcupid.com/users/112/26/11302762098146592552/p1122791055.jpg

Get yourself a Chinese courtesy phrase tattooed on your leg. Problem solved.

多謝 means "many thanks".

Perhaps her other leg says “come again”.